[Stephen Dame]

I wouldn't be putting money on President Kerry yet... but these guys are:

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.tradesports.com/">http://www.tradesports.com/</a><!-- m --> And they've got Florida at dead even money.

Plus this poll of polls shows, for the first time ever, Kerry in the lead with electoral college votes:

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.electoral-vote.com/">http://www.electoral-vote.com/</a><!-- m -->

I know he likes the Red Sox... maybe John is looking to replicate.

Nader it would appear, is still the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

[VioletlightHeron]

For my money, I like how Slate crunches the polls and analyzes who is ahead in the Electoral College. Kerry was winning this past week but it appears he is stumbling in Wisconsin, Iowa and Ohio.
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://slate.msn.com/id/2108497/">http://slate.msn.com/id/2108497/</a><!-- m -->

[grooveless touque]

Polls are folly. It has been noted that these days, nearly all of the young voters cannot be reached for polling or do not respond to calls. That's a huge demographic, millions of people who actually vote (and millions more who may or may not) whose opinions fall by the wayside. Also, incumbents poll better during their term than they do in the days and hours before elections. That's been long established. Incumbents are far less happy with "dead even" polling than challengers. also for the reason that on election day more people who are opposed to the country's governance show up than people who are happy with the status quo. An incumbent needs a several point lead in all regions before they can even think about winning.

There's something very telling here...something that irritates me every time we see the polls so close...more people are furious about the current administration than any other time in my life. More people are concerned about the direction the country is taking, and more people are vocal about it. And yet, the Democratic challenger barely leads the controversial incumbent. We can blame the Bush cronies for their labelling and libelling until we're blue in the face, but the fact remains that Kerry is far from the ideal candidate. I really wish I could say I see him winning this one handily, but I really don't know.

[VioletlightHeron]

I think the reason Kerry isn't "blowing "Bush out of the water is the nature of how he operates politically; he uses polls and the "public mood" to make statements supporting or opposing policy decisions and later tries to backtrack on that statement when the polls shift or the public mood changes. I'll give a three part example to demonstrate this. During the run-up to invading Iraq he voted for the resolution giving Bush the authority to invade if diplomatic efforts failed, even though Iraq had not taken any aggressive military action against its neighbors, but he had this to say about his vote against the Persian Gulf War in 1991, “It is a vote about war because whether or not the president exercises his power, we will have no further say after this vote.” Which just goes to show that Kerry has no real grasp on the Constitution and the division of roles played by the executive branch and Congress in deciding foreign policy and waging war. He also said that voting against the 87 billion dollar would be abandonment of the troops -"I don't think any United States senator is going to abandon our troops and recklessly leave Iraq to whatever follows as a result of simply cutting and running,” and of course his infamous voting for the 87 billion bill before I actually voted against it.

Quite simply, John Kerry wants to be all things to all people. He is like an politician who panders to voters to win elections, his biggest problem is his inability to simply say that he changed his mind.

[skippy the wonder dog]

Grooveless, the voice of reason.

Anyone who wants to understand what polls are worth need only look at the last election here in Canada, where pollsters showed a Conservative minority right down to the wire -- but on election night, the Conservatives actually lost ground in the popular vote. Not only do polls often misrepresent opinion, but the results themselves are spun in an attempt to manipulate opinion.

Slate gives Bush the edge in Florida, but the polls they quote don't support that conclusion. They cite some polls as showing Bush leading, when in fact they show no such thing. Margin of error, anyone? This is either dishonest or incompetent reporting; an honest report would acknowledge that the poll is too close to call -- and that's assuming that the poll accurately reflects public opinion to begin with.

Polls: the opium of the politics junkie. And about as good for your health.

[Stephen Dame]

Grooveless, the voice of reason.

Anyone who wants to understand what polls are worth need only look at the last election here in Canada

Bingo... except that Darryl Reid was right all along, even called the Liberal resurgence on Friday night. I'm wondering if these guys are like him, or like everybody else... time will tell.

[cferneyh]

Grooveless, the voice of reason.

Anyone who wants to understand what polls are worth need only look at the last election here in Canada

Bingo... except that Darryl Reid was right all along, even called the Liberal resurgence on Friday night. I'm wondering if these guys are like him, or like everybody else... time will tell.

Who's Darryl Reid? Do you mean Darrel Bricker from Ipsos-Reid?

I work for one of the polling firms in question (he typed as he ducked for cover), and while I'm not on the public affairs side of things, I'll try my best to briefly explain what happened with the last Federal election. Due to law all polling must cease on the Thursday (I think) before the election. That leaves a pretty big window of time for people to change their minds, not to mention it gives the "undecideds" time to make their decision. Normally this doesn't make a difference. This time it did.

The polls that were released heading into the final weekend showed a large proportion of people saying that - in a nutshell- if the party they didn't want to win was going to win, they would consider changing their vote to a different party to keep their disliked party out of power (ie would people planning to vote NDP change their vote to Liberal to keep Harper out of power).

So what happened on Election day? Every region in the country voted as they had indicated they were going to vote - except for Ontario - which happens to hold the most power. A few regions in Ontario swung the other way (i.e. those NDPers voted Liberal) and a greater proportion of undecideds decided to vote Liberal as well (normally the undecideds are split). But it was clear - the Liberals didn't win because of Martin. The Liberals won because a lot of people got scared of Harper.

And grooveless - sorry to tell you man but your comment "nearly all of the young voters cannot be reached for polling or do not respond to calls" is absolutely not true. Younger people respond to telephone surveys and polls just as much as the older demographic groups do. The difference is that the "younger" demographic is quite narrow and proportionately smaller in number when compared to the other groupings, which means that their opinions don't get as much weight. :thumb:

[Stephen Dame]

Grooveless, the voice of reason.

Anyone who wants to understand what polls are worth need only look at the last election here in Canada

Bingo... except that Darryl Reid was right all along, even called the Liberal resurgence on Friday night. I'm wondering if these guys are like him, or like everybody else... time will tell.

Who's Darryl Reid? Do you mean Darrel Bricker from Ipsos-Reid?

Whoops, thanks for catching that... yeah, Ipsos-Reid. The CPAC dailies were close too, but Bricker was the only guy to say on Friday: "Don't start changing the table-settings at 24 Sussex just yet."

Similar technique to the accumulated EC poll posted above, which made me go "hmmm" in the first place.

I think simply, it comes down to most folks who are undecided are going to stay that way and not vote at all. Nader is all but negligable, and many folks just don't answer polls or tell the pollster the truth. (This happened a lot here, sponsorship seemed a bigger deterant than it really was) There are also a growing number of folks who use cell phones all the time... they vote, (although usually in the youngest/lowest demo) but they're not polled by the big guys.

Add that up with a galvanizing issue (Le War) in former swing states, and the historical fact that only an assaination-resignation combo ever led to the US dropping a President during war-time, and I think Bush wins comfortably.

Which is why, all polling imperfections aside, these guys could be setting themselves up to be "the only one's who saw it coming."

...It's better than a prize fight aint it?

[cferneyh]

There are also a growing number of folks who use cell phones all the time... they vote, (although usually in the youngest/lowest demo) but they're not polled by the big guys.

This is true - somewhat. There are a growing number of people who use cellphones as their one and only phone - however, the overall proportion is still quite tiny so these people are still negligible.

[Stephen Dame]

There's something very telling here...something that irritates me every time we see the polls so close...more people are furious about the current administration than any other time in my life. More people are concerned about the direction the country is taking, and more people are vocal about it. And yet, the Democratic challenger barely leads the controversial incumbent.

Great point. Kerry's campaign has concentrated on telling us why Bush shouldn't be President, it was only at the debates that we began hearing why Kerry should. I don't think he's made the case as a viable alternative, and I don't know if having Bill Clinton step in and say as much is going to be enough.

[skippy the wonder dog]

cfernyeh, without having access to the poll data I'd expect that the undecideds voting liberal would have been a bigger factor than NDP voters swinging back to Martin. The fact that the NDP still made significant gains seems to support this.

Throughout the campaign, newspapers projected for a Harper minority while ignoring the elephants in the room: the hug number of undecided voters and the evidence of a swing to the left. They reported the poll results without considering the dynamics of what the polls showed, which should have told them that they couldn't make any reliable projection at all.

[cferneyh]

Throughout the campaign, newspapers projected for a Harper minority while ignoring the elephants in the room: the hug number of undecided voters and the evidence of a swing to the left.

Well put. :thumb:

[LoftyPines]

- the Liberals didn't win because of Martin. The Liberals won because a lot of people got scared of Harper.

...Bingo

The same reason people are voting for Kerry. He may not be the best, but at least hes not Bush...

[Number Four Bobby Orr]

and of course his infamous voting for the 87 billion bill before I actually voted against it.

Bush has had an entire book written about his "Bushisms" and for him to have the balls to bring up one example of Kerry misspeaking during the debate was pretty funny.

We must all remember too, that only idiots never change their mind.

[VioletlightHeron]

and of course his infamous voting for the 87 billion bill before I actually voted against it.

Bush has had an entire book written about his "Bushisms" and for him to have the balls to bring up one example of Kerry misspeaking during the debate was pretty funny.

We must all remember too, that only idiots never change their mind.

misspeaking?? Kerry wasn't misspeaking when he was trying to explain away his "it was politically popular and now it isnt among Democrats" explaination for changing his mind about that appropriation. Bottom line, Kerry didnt change his mind based on any principles except the fear of being on the wrong side of the conventional wisdom and losing votes from Democrats from it. He only became the anti-war candidate in January because he saw that Howard Dean was killing him in the polls.